Saturday, November 22, 2014

Hot off the Twitter griddle for you! Our weekly round-up of fav Tweets with links to other blogs, web sites, articles, and images.
• Proof of an early world economy: Roman glass plate has been discovered in a 5th c. A.D. Japanese tomb.
• More than a genteel pastime: Regency-era sketches of the UK, painted by Lady Anne Rushout (1768-1849) of Wanstead Grove.
• Studying a rare extant 18th c. robe de cour bodice in Sweden.
• Making the best of bad parchment: delightful inspirations of imperfections in medieval parchment.
• No, no, no! The Victorians did not invent the vibrator.
• Image: The first bathing machines in England were introduced in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, in 1735.
• Portable soup, as supplied by Mrs. Dubois to the Royal Navy, 1756.
• Saving one of Italy's oldest cities from crumbling away.
• Poignant and unsettling: finding a mental asylum's cemetery for young patients hidden in the woods.
• Ancient Egyptian book of spells is deciphered.
• Image: Charles Dickens reading to his two daughters, 'Mamie' and Kate, at their Gad's Hill home, 1865.
• A gentleman and his purse: newly identified 17th c. portrait of Sir Thomas Savage, 1st Viscount Savage.
• Children in mourning, and mourning a child through early modern history.
• One of Napoleon's two-pointed hats auctioned for $2.2 million at the Osenat auction house this week.
• The soldier and the quack: medical blackmail in Victorian London.
• Image: From the collection of The Fan Museum: a lace fan, c. 1890, with Faberge guilloche enamelling and goldwork.
• Years of suffering for an 18th c. newlywed wife: treating the "Rheumatick complaint" of Mary, Countess of Chatham.
• After the harvest: a bountiful November feast in medieval Europe.
• "Deluded by his hypocrises": Lady Mary Radclyffe Stanhope Gell (and her shoes.)
• A slideshow about reading instruction in the U.S., 18th-20th c.
• Fascinating look at how the Museum of London stores the remains of medieval Londoners - and what can be learned from them.
• "Bringeth down the menses": a short history of abortifacients.
• Image: Tremendous atmosphere in this 13th c. chapter house turned 19th c. chapel at Newstead Abbey, Notts.
• The 1739 Infant in the Well and unwed mothers in the 18th c.
• Women's indigo-dyed pocket hoops c. 1750s-90s - linen fabric and baleen/whalebone for shaping.
• The bloody history of chocolate.
• Squeezed in between the mansions: New York City's lost 1869 Church of the Heavenly Rest on Fifth Avenue.
• An American icon, especially in the 1950s: the saga of Davy Crockett's coonskin hat.
• Oseberg wooden Viking ship head, found in Norway and dated to 825.
• Unusual 18th c. ceiling decoration shows Death blowing bubbles.
• Men and women in gardens, in 17th c. prints.
• Gallery views of "Death Becomes Her" exhibition of mourning wear currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Feather crowns and witch wreaths.
• A streetcar cow-catcher for pedestrians, as described in Scientific American in 1894.
• Snuff and snuff-boxes.
• Vintage mugshots reveal some of Australia's earliest women criminals.
• Just for fun: Elizabethan superheroes.
• And more superheroes for more fun: Batman shares our sentiments exactly.Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.

Another sterling group of links! Oh, that Swedish bodice and the Faberge fan! The mourning articles and the sad stories of the women in the infant in the well post were other highlights. And thanks for including my witch crowns post! Always my first Sunday morning stop.

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.